The cutting table here at Red Sky Shelters is quite the fixture. It’s about 6ft wide and 20ft long. Because most of the pieces required to make a Yome are fairly large, and because the table is so wide, it’s generally most practical to cut things out as a team, one person on one side of the table and one on the other. This makes for a great opportunity to have a chat, seeing as most of the other things that we do here in the sewing studio involve sitting in front of a machine that makes a little bit too much noise to easily talk over. So, there are some great conversations that happen at this table.

Recently, I had the opportunity to do some cutting with Peter, our fair leader, and I got a little history of the Red Sky workshop. The space that we are in here has two huge rooms, one for the sewing operation, and one for the wood and metal-working operation. This is fortunate, as sawdust and metal shards interfere with our ability to keep our projects (your living spaces!) clean. Peter was telling me about his last shop here in Asheville, where they had, for a while, only one space for both of these aspects of Yome creation. All of the woodworking tools would be dragged out into the alley to be used, making it very weather dependent and a bit cumbersome. It also brought them into contact with the auto mechanics who also worked out of the building (who were not huge fans of the hippies in the alley).

This is my third installment regarding my experiences with insulating my Yome over the last five years.

I like adjusting my environment.

Maybe that’s why I’m drawn to live in a Yome. I can change the way my Home interacts with the Larger World in a matter of minutes.

I am thinking of this last Fall and Winter, when I added side-wall insulation to the Yome I have been living in for years…

First, it softened and dampened the harsher noises from outside my tent. I can see a major highway from my house in the Winter. The leaves on the trees are best for lessening the pollution, and I wish I had a wall of bamboo sometimes. Thankfully, with the insulation, the padded, triangular pillows that fill in the space between my Yome poles are enough to give me more privacy and quiet. Read more →